Virginia's evac plan

From the NYT, via the Corner:

Mr. Judkins is one of the officials in charge of evacuating the Hampton Roads region around Newport News, Va. These coastal communities, unlike New Orleans, are not below sea level, but they're much better prepared for a hurricane. Officials have plans to run school buses and borrow other buses to evacuate those without cars, and they keep registries of the people who need special help.

I guess New Orleans has a similar plan, but it wasn't implemented. But here's the kicker in the Virginia plan:

Instead of relying on a "Good Samaritan" policy - the fantasy in New Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors - the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.

"It's cold, but it's effective," Mr. Judkins explained.

That simple strategy could have persuaded hundreds of people to save their own lives in New Orleans. What the city needed most was coldly effective local leaders, not a president in Washington who could feel their pain.

Amen.

UPDATE: Or maybe just an "addition": Apparently the New Orleans police were told not to come in to work on the day the hurricane hit, to save money on the budget. Is that crazy? It seems backwards to me--you have this huge potential emergency, and you tell your police not to come in. I've never been in a hurricane, so maybe this is just standard operating procedure. But it seems...stupid.

Breaking News?

This is the red banner on the top of cnn.com's website at 11:38am Tuesday Sept 6.

"Breaking News: New Orleans flood waters contaminated with e. coli, official in office of Mayor Ray Nagin tells CNN. Details soon."

Gee, you think? With fecal matter from the sewers backed up into the flood? I'm shocked and surprised.

Or not.

Re: The case for well-armed citizens

I'm not ready to go out an buy a gun (as Keryn was when she wrote the post below), but I am far more convinced of the need for citizens to own firearms than I've ever been in the past. The constitution speaks of the need for a militia. I thought that our professional armies and National Guard had supplanted that need. But in the case of a disaster, more help is needed in the crisis moment. If I were to purchase a gun, it would be to add it to my emergency supply kit--under lock and key. Then I would be willing to use it to defend the public good should the need arise.

The case for well-armed citizens

Although I am a stauch supporter of the Second Amendment, I have never wanted to own a gun. I didn't grow up around guns, and so they still intimidate me a little. Add to that a lack of interest in shooting and hunting sports, and a lack of money to own a gun and a safe place for it (I have small children), and I never expected to change my mind. My husband has been of the same opinion, and so we have been a NRA-supporting, but gun-lacking, family.

Until now. The situation in New Orleans frightens me badly. Like many of the members of my church (we are LDS, aka Mormons), we are counseled to have reserves (food, money, etc) in case of emergency. We hope we would be willing to share our supplies with others in a disaster. But the anarchy and violence in New Orleans...we are not willing to allow looters to take what our family needs to survive. And we ARE willing to defend it.

In the middle of the chaos that accompanies disaster, it would be too late to go get a gun, be trained on how to use it safely, etc. And, honestly, I never considered it an emergency necessity. The events in New Orleans--and the actions of the small number of lawless and immoral people--have convinced me otherwise.

Katrina links

The disaster of Hurricane Katrina is still unfolding, but already there are amazing satellite pictures, provocative posts, and interesting retrospectives. Here are just a few I found interesting:

Sat pix animated
Before and afters
More sat pix (not animated)
The Big One
Should we rebuild?
"Nature's revenge"

Updated (Sept 1, 10:30pm)
CNN before and after sat pix

Defining Income Still Makes a Flat Tax Tough

One CPA I spoke to about the concept of a flat tax mentioned that the hardest thing in the tax code isn't figuring out the percentage that should be paid or the amount that should be deducted. It is figuring out what "income" is. While I'm not even close to an expert, that makes sense to me.

If I'm a fat-cat CEO it may be a lot easier to get the company to provide "benefits" that don't get counted as income. Do you count the value of your health coverage as income? What about a company car that you get to use? What about a company jet? Would a flat tax eliminate the difference between pre-tax and post-tax money that currently exists?

If we're trying to figure out what defines corporate income, I think it is probably even more difficult. Is income defined the same as revenue? profit? I suppose that is it probably somewhere in between those two. That means that income is really hard to define. So hard that there will always be thick books for accountants to peruse to figure it out.

How hard is it really for me as an individual to figure out my income tax right now? Pretty easy. I just punch my information into the software and it spits out the right answers. I can read the income figures right off my W-2. No problem. The difficulty in the tax code has always been and will probably continue to be with the people or entities that can't define their income with a simple W-2 or 1099.

This post was inspired by a post at Dynamic Range.

Utah and Iraq deaths

There's a lot of buzz around the blogosphere today about Daily Kos' suggestion that areas that voted for Kerry have more military deaths than areas that voted for Bush. There are a myriad of things wrong with his maps and his conclusion that are explained here and here, but one thing in particular caught my attention: Utah has suffered the least amount of Iraq deaths per 100,000 residents.

Statistically, I don't quite know what that means. Does Utah have fewer people in Iraq or in the armed forces? I didn't think so, but maybe.

DDT: Good or bad?

I read an article similar to this one awhile back that claimed that DDT was unfairly maligned and could save millions of lives by killing mosquitoes. Then I read this article refuting many of the more convincing points--saying basically that DDT isn't the magic bullet some claim it is. Which to believe? I don't know.

UPDATE 22 May 2007: I'm still no expert on DDT, but the topic seems to be growing in popularity again as we approach the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. Opinion Journal has a piece that looks disapprovingly on the unintended consequences of banning DDT. We now use more, less-potent pesticides with less effect.

Nuclear North Korea

Orson Scott Card has written a wonderfully brief and provocative piece about nuclear proliferation. What happens when North Korea has the bomb? Thanks to Provo Pulse for the link.

Bashing Hillary Shows Poor Taste

I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but I am really not a fan of a book by Ed Klein called "The Truth About Hillary." I read the first 30 pages or so and was totally turned off. This is not a fact filled, hard hitting book. It is a gossip column and doesn't deserve to be read by people serious about politics and government. I actually find myself agreeing with Al Franken. He did an interview (along with a few friends in gang up fashion) with Ed Klein which is available if you subscribe (for free) to his podcast with iTunes (4.9 or better). I can't find a way to link to it directly.

Dick Durbin vs. Trent Lott

Remember some time ago, when Senator Trent Lott (R) said something complimentary about Strom Thurmond’s run for the presidency as a segregationalist? It was during a celebration for Sen. Thurmond (who had significantly changed his politics in the intervening 30+ years), and Sen. Lott was merely trying to honor his achievements. His remark was unintentionally offensive to some, but it was at worst a gaffe. However, he was drummed out of party leadership by the uproar from the Democrats (among other groups), who demanded his resignation on the basis that, even if it was unintentional, it was proof that he really had racist tendencies at heart.

Now we turn to a much more recent comment made by someone in party leadership. This time it is Senator Dick Durbin, the Democrat senator from Illinois. His statements comparing Guantanamo Bay to the concentration camps, the gulag, or to Pol Pot’s regime have caused an uproar in many circles. What does this say about his closely-held beliefs? That he believes our servicemen and women are comparable to some of the worst regimes in recent history? Although he has issued a statement regretting—not the comparison, he firmly stands by that—but any misunderstanding that has resulted from his comments, many believe that is not enough. There are calls for a better apology, his resignation from the party leadership, and even (apparently) Senate censure.

How is this situation different from Sen. Lott’s? Well, for one, Sen. Lott was speaking at a party honoring his colleague, and his remarks were (if I remember correctly) unscripted. He also apologized repeatedly and disavowed any racist meaning. Compare that to Sen. Durbin, whose prepared remarks were made on the Senate floor, and have not been retracted.

It seems to me if you believed that Sen. Lott should have been punished for his remarks (as many, many Democrats did), then you should also believe that Sen. Durbin should be punished for his. But, as of today, he is still the Senate’s assistant minority leader—the second-ranked Democrat. Excuse me if I don’t think that is a little hypocritical.

A few bad apples...

Amnesty Irrational by Ned Rice

Amnesty International is at it again...I refer here to their recent pronouncement that the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons have become "the gulag of our time," which is the sort of hyperbole that only the historically illiterate are capable of.

There has been a lot in the news lately about the abuse at the United States prison at Guantanamo, Cuba. There has also been a lot of hype about how horrible it is, how this proves that we are as bad as the ones we are fighting (some of whom happily blow themselves and senior citizens or police officers or army recuits up). Without getting too wrapped up in accusations that I find absurd to the point of ridiculousness, Ned Rice in this article makes a good point:

They would have you believe that it was morally wrong-impeachable, even — to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq and perhaps trigger the democratization of an entire subcontinent because some terrorist prisoners may have been improperly (and unjustly — don't get me wrong) treated during the chaos of a shooting war. Which is a bit like saying the United States was on the wrong side of World War II simply because Allied soldiers sometimes roughed up German POWs during questioning, or shot Japanese troops deep behind enemy lines because they had no means of securely detaining them (both of which happened). As anyone familiar with history and warfare knows, Amnesty International's characterization of the U.S. prisons as being a "the gulag of our time" are more than just obscene. They are, as President Bush recently noted, absurd.

Amen.

Legal drug imports = drug price controls

The Drug-Importation Hoax

Elizabeth M. Whelan at National Review Online writes about the likely result if Congress endorses the importation of drugs from countries with price controls (like Canada).

The reason that Rx drugs cost less in countries like Canada is that international laws on commerce treat prescription drugs differently from other consumer products. U.S. pharmaceutical companies are required under a 1994 treaty to sell their drugs at drastically cut prices to countries with drug price controls. Any pharmaceutical company that fails to comply can be punished by having its patent protection taken away. It is as if you were selling books in the United States for $10 and when you offered them to Canada, officials there told you that they would either give you $4 or violate your intellectual property rights and make copies of the book without your permission, in the name of educating Canadians.

The United States, which does not currently have price controls, produces nearly 90 percent of the world's supply of new pharmaceuticals. Countries with price controls do not produce any significant supplies of new drugs — instead, the innovators have fled to the U.S., where they have the protection of the free-market system and protection for intellectual property they create.

If companies can sell their drugs only at cost — and cannot recoup more than the approximate $800 million it costs to bring a drug to market — companies will stop making new drugs, just as they have in other countries with price controls.

Americans’ pharmaceutical companies are launching drugs that dramatically reduce cholesterol and blood pressure...drugs that not only significantly reduce the recurrence of breast cancer but show promise for preventing such malignancies in the first place.

An example of heroic measures I agree with

Woman is kept alive to save unborn baby

A 26-year-old pregnant woman with cancer whose brain function ceased last month is being kept alive with a respirator in hopes she can have a very premature baby who has a chance to survive.

It's just interesting that I would find this article the very next morning after writing about end-of-life decisions. The entire article is heart-wrenching and beautiful. This is a time when I think heroic measures are worthwhile. I hope I don't ever have to face anything like that, but it is what I would want for myself. I know that when I was pregnant, I would have done anything to save the baby.
Update: Here is a column from her brother-in-law. He has some wonderful insights.

The Alternative

The View From the ICU - The alternative to doing everything for a dying patient. By David Friedman

Although the main thrust of the Terri Schiavo story ended with her (merciful) death on March 31, I was a little too busy having a baby to post my opinion on end-of-life treatments, or prolonging biological life when the soul, to all intents and purposes, is no longer present. This article by Dr. David Friedman explains (quite bluntly) what takes place when "everything" is done to prolong a life. It is fairly horrifying. He then states:

When a patient has a chance of meaningful recovery we rush to do all this and more. Sometimes it is doctors and sometimes it is families who push too hard when the prognosis is grim...a wildly disproportionate amount [of health care spending] is spent during the final few tenths of a percent of a life, prolonging the inevitable, agonizing end for both patients and their families.

My husband and I have discussed this at length, and we decided that we are not interested in draining the financial and emotional coffers of the surviving spouse in order to add a few days or weeks to a life already spent, or keeping our spouse "alive" in body but not mind.
(Now, I have to say I don't especially agree with Dr. Friedman's last paragraph. Having the government give everyone a one-time payment in return for waiving our rights to end-of-life aggressive treatment seems really, really wrong to me. But then, I'm strongly in favor of smaller government. How about you just cut my taxes, please?)